Optimal Human Relations

The Search for a Good Life

C. David Mortensen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351501484
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This volume deals with the human desire to live the good life, defined as seeking that which "is good, optimal, or ultimately desirable." While there may be different ways of achieving this goal, the pathways are similar in some ways. In exploring the ways in which these paths cross, Mortensen asserts that an ability to sustain optimal human relations--that is, healthy communication, interpersonal compatibility, and prosocial influence--is a standard against which the good life can be measured. Optimal Human Relations explores the favorable conditions for human beings to live the best possible way of life imaginable; it both argues the case for and documents recent advances in the study of social influences on everyday life. Social influences help to develop an expansive sense of intrinsic motivation in daily encounters with others. While optimal relations are not easily achieved or maintained, it is through healthy relationships that one may pursue pleasure and happiness--even meaning, importance, and significance with valued companions. The cultivation of physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health through these relations generates an enhanced sense of well-being, growth, and maturity. Mature individuals are more likely to maintain optimal relations by counting daily blessings more than lamenting routine burdens. This inspirational conception of "the good life" invites productive inquiry into the conditions responsible for the pursuit of optimal conditions, fulfilled expectations, and a rich, vital, way of life. It is through this lens that Mortensen measures the good life, pointing to these aspects of human communication as a litmus test of the relative importance of individualistic and collective orientations. Along the way, the reader discovers who and what we are in relation to the quality of the world in which we reside alongside those who journey with us.

1

Introduction

The basic premise of this work is that human beings are motivated to live the best possible way of life imaginable. Each, active, vital human being retains an intrinsic interest in making common, salient, and realistic sense of complex daily events. It is one thing to imagine the best conditions for human beings to survive, mature, prosper, and flourish. It is quite another to live a vital way of life for the sake of what each life makes possible before others. Optimal human relations are not easily achieved nor effortlessly sustained. Certain conditions must be satisfied for cohesive human encounters to bring out the best of everyone and minimize the worst.

One, optimal conditions must exclude brief involvements or episodic engagements in easily fulfilled tasks, projects, or routines in daily life. A more appropriate reality test applies to all striving persons who engage in the common pursuit of desired ends or welcome outcomes. Resources, abilities, and skills must all be subject to rigorous test. A great deal of dedication, preparation, and practice is required to perform at a distinctive level of human performance. As competitive standards are elevated, so also must the intensity of labor-intensive effort be increased to minimize the diminished margin of error. What qualifies is a person who achieves merited status or is judged worthy of honorific emulation before others.

Two, optimal conditions require the maximum application of all affordable resources, abilities, and skills. What transpires in an open social system (a<—>b) is predicated on adaptive, realistic, and replicated capacity to take part in what takes place over time. Engaged persons may rely on wide variations and diverse methods of free association based on real, ideal, or surreal factors. Integrated configurations register at three levels: (a) real, explicit, observation, (what transpires), (b) ideal, what should, ought, or could take place (what is idealized), and (c) surreal, implicit influences from bodily cravings (what is desired). The impact of “what transpires” among multiple speaking subjects may be (re)framed or (re)formulated into an abstract conception of “what ought” to transpire in an open system: [A—>(a<—>b) X (subject) (a<—>b)<—>B]. In this formula, A’s view and B’s view of the interaction between A and B leads to A’s view of B’s view and A’s view of B’s view of A’s view, plus B’s view of A’s view and B’s view of A’s view of B’s view. Six domains of personal interpretation are available for comparison—the direct views, the indirect views of each other, and the indirect views of each other’s view of one another.

When the explicit (direct) views are closely aligned with the implicit views of each other, a state of conjunction occurs: agreement, understanding, and realization. When the perspectives (on the various perspectives) are not closely aligned, a state of disjunction occurs: disagreement, misunderstanding and failure of realization. In operational terms, the definition of a social situation is simply all individual definitions (conjunctions plus disjunctions) added up for equal consideration. No one sphere of perspective taking activity matters more or less than any other one. Ideal, real, and covert features of multiple perspective taking inevitably shape all manner of interpretative performance.

In effect, a single instance of a larger (implicit) general category may be measured against a higher order, transcendent, or idealized performance standard. In effect, realistic conceptions of what takes place among interactive individuals (social agents) may then dissolve into abstract, idealized, romantic, sanitized, or purified socially desirable notions of what should or could transpire if only complex things and embedded matters had somehow turned out quite differently. Idealized notions may well covary along two major dimensions. What prevails is a broad distribution of ascendant (upward) or descendent (downward) transitions, shifts, or changes in the definition, classification, or explanation of stressful social outcomes.

An upward directed, ascendant aspiration is subject to verification or validation. Realistic conceptions of daily events may be later (re)translated into ideal/abstract form. One might imagine what ought, might, should, or could transpire, (if-only) something else would have taken the place of what actually did transpire (counterfactual statement). One can imagine alternative conceptions of what could have taken place if only sudden, unexpected, or invasive conditions had not actually intervened. Any given person may be subjected to inexplicable, overpowering, or overwhelming force that cannot be anticipated in advance. Conversely, a downward directed, descendent aspiration may acquire an implicit, covert, or implied measure of personal influence. Surreal factors include (small-scale) matters of appetite (craving, appetite, desire) that coalesce into tacit and (mostly) unconscious activation of unspoken inference and covert implication (implicature).

Realistic factors include any observable behavior that is subject to direct verification one way or another. Ideal factors include enhanced desires for the shared fulfillment of multiple plans, goals, and objectives. However, surreal or ideal factors may infiltrate or penetrate realistic standards of what takes place (applied social knowledge). Everyday life is very real, of course, but not simply nominally or merely (exclusively) real, due to the steady infiltration of tacit and ideal constraints (on opportunity) that register well outside of conscious awareness of current conditions as specified in personal, relational, and collective terms.

The reality of daily life cannot be whittled down to strictly personal reality claims. The (inclusive) goodness-of-fit between multiple persons and mixed motive situations is grounded in the central domain of public and private boundary conditions. What qualifies as personal reality (lived circumstance) is derived from implicit influences assessed against ideal or real scales of performance achievement. It is appropriate, therefore, to refer to all accessible participants as able and willing to remain in or out of touch with what unfolds within the current boundary of the absolute present tense (conscious awareness) between them. The cumulative impact of real, ideal, and surreal modes of social influence is what hangs in the balance. One may appear to be fully present for someone else or something else, while still actively or passively oriented toward some distant frame of reference that is located well outside the confines of the current situation.

Things are not always what they seem. What is revealed on the surface of public appearance does not necessarily grant automatic, transparent, or direct access with whatever lies beneath current thresholds of participation and observation in applied social settings. Concerted, regressive striving may shift the entire (interpretive) balance away from a tight, focused, and present-centered sense of (co)orientation toward a more biased personal slant that is directed toward prior or previous outcomes as recalled in working memory. Progressive motivations shift the larger balance away from attentive focus on current conditions and toward expected or anticipated events in the distant future. Realistic social orientations must be able to withstand the diversionary stress of constantly living in the past or merely existing for the distant future.

Three, a realistic orientation toward the completion of difficult or strenuous tasks in daily life must not be overtaken or swept side by mechanisms of escape, avoidance, denial or rationalization into either an ascendant, idealized world or a descendent, desired world (as substitutes) for acute awareness of the real world. The temptation to take refuge in idealized, romantic, or utopian alternatives to real-life opportunities is often predicted on infallible, perfectionistic, or mythical (heroic) aspirations. Some participants may pretend to know everything there is to know about a contested subject. Other participants may fantasize about flawless performance (perfect score of ten). Sometimes only the best will do and second place is no longer good enough. Some play to win at all costs. Escapist tactics may provide temporary relief from the chronic tensions of daily life.

At the lower threshold, it is desirable for a realistic orientation to assume greatest priority over protracted indulgence in surreal desires or subsistence motives. Nonetheless, insatiable craving, appetite, and desire may be channeled into a more realistic orientation toward the opportunities and obligations of daily life. Likewise, a reasonable orientation may be also subject to the subversive force of unconscious desires for appetite satisfaction. As a rule, the latitude of realistic orientation must remain greater than the combined impact of ideal alternatives or covert desires. To live fully in the present moment is to stay centered on what transpires while it still unfolds in an active sense.

Temporal relief from the tug of unconscious craving, appetite, and desire may well emerge through acts of personal appeasement and mutual accommodation in order to fulfill a coveted aspiration to reach for higher ground. In effect, optimal orientations are predicated on the activation of realistic orientations toward daily life, out of the intrinsic pursuit of realistically obtained achievements, despite the press of extrinsic detraction or means of escape from relentless pursuit of the ideal, the best, or the best from all the rest.

There is a strange allure of being the chosen one who stands above or beyond all the rest of the striving competitors for some coveted prize or crown. As a corrective alternative, optimistic conditions require attentive, sensitive, and stable conditions of personal awareness, participation, achievement, and appreciation of multiple opportunities—an effective realistic orientation—toward all manner of personal pursuits in daily life. Living in the real world may turn out to be the best of all possible worlds because it is our world to share with each other.

Four, optimistic conditions are based on the shared resources, abilities, and skills that enable speaking subjects to achieve cohesive relational alliances based on the fulfillment of desired ends or welcome outcomes. The best intentions do sometimes lead to the best of outcomes. The law of unintended consequence need not always intervene. Healthy communication, therefore, goes to the core of distinctive standards by which favorable achievements are judged one way or another.

Personal health involves more than the mere absence of illness. The absence of needless pain and suffering may spare one from a chronic need for medical diagnosis or invasive intervention. Internal discomfort reveals the magnitude of external distress, duress, disease, or disability that accrues over time. One who is vitally alive acquires definition, direction, and involvement with the ebb and flow of daily life. One may be alive with infinite possibilities—a strong sense of what matters more or less in all that matters at all, one way or another.

Personal health is biologically constituted and socially constructed. Everything that transpires in demanding situated activities depends on the maximal use of personal resources (potential—who one is), ability (possible knowledge—what one knows), and skill (use—what one does) in stressful public activities. Healthy communication promotes a spirit of strong intentionality, explicit intentions, accurate interpretations, integrated (conversational) patterns and behavioral structures to bring about (global) strategic (interest) and (temporal) tactical action that leads to desirable end states and a useful means of avoiding, minimizing, or discounting undesirable outcomes.

Healthy personal relations may be envisioned as an individual or collective (embodiment) of some revealing or illuminating discovery. Other people may help us or hinder us from achieving the best that affectionate relational bonds have to offer. We need other people to tell us who, what, and why we are (in relation) to their (co)presence as separate, autonomous entities. The quest for personal discovery acquires definition and direction in expansive relation to our (a) material surroundings, (b) conscious or unconscious connections with one another, (c) animated relations with other living creatures, and (d) appropriation of material objects from the ecological landscape for some applied use. The search for optimal health in cohesive human relations entails progressive integration of one’s own sense of being alive in the world of infinite possibilities. At stake are core matters of body, mind, and spirit that operate together in an open field of public inquiry across the life span. The affirmative and constructive promotion of social health may promote subsequent gains in the magnitude of vitality, courage, and determination to steer the course.

Five, optimal conditions are based on complex matters of resource, ability, and skill allocation. What matters is how well the respective parties are able and willing to act on behalf of their most well informed desires. Each participant strives to take into full account the general welfare of everyone else who is engaged in labor-intensive modes of collective endeavor. It is possible to envision an individual, relational, and communal conception of optimal conditions that remains accessible and available to all members of a larger human community. One model is based on a stance of ecological realism where daily encounters are cast against the diffuse backdrop of everyday life.

Optimal conditions, when measured by ecological standards, occur in habitable environments that provide an abundance of material resources that can be appropriated by striving persons to make the best out of whatever leads to the greatest fulfillment of their most informed desires. By implications, material settings with scarce or inadequate resources qualify as unfavorable or suboptimal conditions for mature personal development. In all cases, what matters is how well or badly human beings treat themselves and other valued persons in the common pursuit of daily labor, habit, routine, project, or other goal-directed endeavor that leads to the greater fulfillment of desired ends and mutual avoidance of irreversible loss. Risky, aversive, unfavorable, or problematic circumstance must be handled with utmost care.

Informed desire and fulfilled potential may be actualized through direct, engaging, and animated human encounters to better know what makes life go well and what contributes to the enhancement and the diminution of the individual. Multiple pathways include: (1) the pursuit of happiness, (2) the discovery of meaning, (3) the cultivation of sanity (physical, emotional, cognitive, relational, and collective well-being), and (4) altruistic sentiment generated in cohesive kinship ties based on standards of cohesion and solidarity. In fact, the greater pursuit of the good life culminates in a shared discovery of pleasure, meaning, well-being, and altruistic sentiment toward tangible sources and intangible subject matter all mixed together.

Six, optimal conditions are likely to occur in life affirming settings where the respective participants bring out the best in each other. It is possible to envision optimal conditions in which a wide succession of daily activities is taken into well measured account. Optimal relations most likely occur where speaking subjects assign priority to maximizing a spirit of acceptance of one another as separate, distinctive, and uniquely situated beings. Mutual acceptance of multiple sources and diverse subject matter may coincide, fit together, and coalesce into collective appreciation of each member’s position and place in the wider scheme of things, the hidden order of things.

Institutional forces of solidarity and cohesion are tested against the resistant forces of estrangement and alienation in contested public deliberations. Under benevolent conditions, deliberate choice and decision may come as close as possible to achieving lofty objectives. Just the right flow of feedback or salient information will insure proper functioning of the brain. Optimistic persons will likely take a favorable view of current circumstance or future prospects as a matter of course. Literate human beings might as well make the best of daily opportunity. Consensual interpretations of complex events may be designed to make things better or keep them from getting worse. Instead of a sterile, mindless debate whether the cup (of life) is half full or half empty, there is no reason why one could not see one’s own cup (of lived circumstance) as full, complete, or overflowing insofar as everyday blessings surpass daily burdens. Multiple opportunities open up an unspecified and uncertain margin of obligation toward external agents. The limits of human evolution are set against chronic tension from external constraint.

Optimal striving may be designed to overcome resistance or what prevents anyone from fulfilling their promise to themselves or making their fondest dreams come true. Mature persons provide exemplary models of ultimate personal fulfillment, the good life, or heroic visions of the way life should be. Nonetheless, routine or habituated activities that are most often reproduced over extensive time frames may be squandered on vain illusion, obsession, or fantasy of gain without loss, success without failure, trial without error, or pleasure without pain.

Efficacious performance standards are linked to the pursuit of favorable conditions, optimal achievements, and satisfying outcomes. Performance standards are embedded in labor-intensive actions that remain under close public scrutiny. Favorable settings enable striving subjects to obtain desired resources without being subjected to excessive stress, strife, and strain. Conversely, unfavorable social settings disable striving subjects from obtaining desired resources by being subject to intolerable levels of stress, strife, and strain. In effect, strategic activity pits the collective need for constant individual access to external resources—light, heat, air, water, food—against chronic struggle that is required to deal with intrusive environmental sources of friction, tension, and stress. Some types of merited performance may well measure up, whereas other situated actions may not matter one way or another. What matters most is the implementation of all affordable resources, abilities, and skills taken as honorific models of emulation before others.

Seven, optimal conditions involve complex matters of (personal) competence and (relational) compatibility. Functional standards of communicative competence may be assessed against three strategic (large-scale) and tactical (small-scale) objectives: to express ourselves clearly, to adapt multiple perspectives, and to respond accurately to others. The sensitive integration of expressive and responsive sequences may be conductive to the mutual acquisition of accurate measures of message production and message reception.

The achievement of communicative competence does not rule out the adverse impact of deteriorated, defective, or incompetent modes of personal conduct before others. Unfavorable conditions may well lead to faulty communication. Practical problems associated with tension, stress, and strain may help to determine the balance between the desire to make things better or keep them from getting worse. Problematic conditions occur when the encumbered demands of unresolved problems, issues, and concerns exceed the ability or willingness of the entangled participants to figure out what goes wrong or what is required to make things right.

Eight, optimal conditions are likely to emerge where the unifying force is the central latitude of interdependence. It is important for mutual tolerance of the sheer magnitude of interdependent activities to be greater than the peripheral force of independence (autonomy) or submissiveness (subordination). A broad latitude of interdependence is a convergent force, whereas independent or dependent alternatives work in the opposite, divergent manner. The cumulative impact of human encounters is located within a large middle ground. Amicable participants construct interdependent activity insofar as A’s behavior influences the behavior of A and B while B’s behavior influences the behavior of A and B. Covert, overt, and ideal conjunctions come together in a realistic embodiment of democratic and equalitarian alliances between kindred spirits.

The middle ground is a unifying source of positive and convergent movement between interdependent sources (social agents) that can be actualized in serial reproductions of consensual behavior where the complementary views of everyone are copresent with the contrasting views of everyone else. To be interdependent is to come together more than to move apart. The peripheral influence of independent and submissive orientations must be kept in check for realistic orientations towa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Optimal Conditions
• 3. Communicative Competence
• 4. Interpersonal Compatibility
• 5. Prosocial Influence
• Bibliography
• Index